Interesting. Something that strikes me about the many groups that we humans tend to classify into is that many of them (if not all) are created by the perceived difference between them and other people, for example, people who identify themselves as black do so because they perceive a difference with respect to whites, and vice versa, in this way, a relationship of codependency is created between both groups in which each one needs of the existence of the other, or similar ones (yellow, etc.), in order to exist, that is, if there were only blacks in the world, or whites, then no one would identify as black or white, and the group would lose its unity and cease to exist. Nation-states may very well have been created in some similar way, and it is not surprising to realize that the existence of one state depends on the existence of all other states, and in turn, the other states are the cause by which the state exists. It's kind of a vicious cycle.
Something similar happens when people develop our identity, that we differentiate between what we perceive that we are in the "I", and what we are not in the "other", and these two things exist each because of the other, and in turn, they are defined by their opposite without being anything in itself. Just concepts.
In this sense, the person can come to identify with everything except with what he really is, and stop recognizing himself as an individual, but as part of a group, I think this is when collectivism begins.
Anyway, I'm glad to come across your publication in my feed, greetings!
Excellent points. If identity is group-based than nobody would have an identity if we were all one group, which we actually are as human beings. Of course this can't be the case, so our identity is developed by the unique characteristics each individual has. The question then becomes why does anyone choose to neglect their own identity in favor of the non-identity of race or nationality?
Well I could give a very philosophical answer to that question, and I would say that it is because they don't know themselves, then they define themselves by what they are not, which is what they know. But it may not be the case.
Seems to be true. Self-knowledge, which really is just actual thinking, is probably the most lacking thing in the world.